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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388072">Stillness and Gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosehip/pseuds/Rosehip'>Rosehip</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ceilidh Tabris: Otherwise [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Discussions of slavery, Domesticity, Flashback, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue, sometimes you can't go home again</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:28:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosehip/pseuds/Rosehip</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Valora can't seem to shake being a morning person. That's good- she has a lot to think about, like her strange family and how she came to be here.</p><p>(You cannot tell me that a Tabris warden wouldn't spend their whole life trying to find their people. Sometimes, they might even succeed.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zevran Arainai/Female Tabris, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ceilidh Tabris: Otherwise [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1225376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stillness and Gold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning sun slanted low into the whitewashed kitchen turning it to the color of good butter. Valora reveled in the quiet. This time of summer, even though the sun rose, most people who did not work as cooks would lie abed for hours, yet.</p><p>She had the habit of little sleep and early mornings, after about a decade in Tevinter. But now, her mornings belonged only to herself. Even there, she'd never minded the kitchen work. The masters of the house rarely entered the kitchen and left the slaves in peace. How strange to forsake the heart of one's own home.</p><p>Valora still spent more time in this kitchen than the owners of it, but in Antiva, it was her own choice. Choice- the novelty of that almost drowned out the fear sounding in the back of her head. Fear of what? Being discarded, being found, who knew? It changed, day to day.</p><p>Ceilidh Tabris had her back, though. She knew that. Valora pointed this out often to herself. Ceilidh, not quite a relative though she was, had spent the free time of years hunting down every rumor, sniffing along every trail, venturing into hostile territory, and probably engaging in more violence than Valora wanted to know about- all to find the lost Denerim elves. The search continued, and a small group of allies disrupted the slave trade as much as they could otherwise as well.</p><p>Valora sipped her good coffee which she could drink as much of as she liked. She smeared a slice of yesterday's bread with soft cheese and jam. The baking biscuits Valora had rolled out for today baked and began to scent the air.</p><p>Soon, Ceilidh would smell food and wander down, her daughter and Valora's twin son and daughter trailing not far behind. Zevran always followed last of all, though Valora suspected he didn't sleep. He probably listened instead to the chatter comfortably filling up his house. His house. Of all the great things he had seen in the world, that was on the list of things he never expected. He told her, once, a few nights past that last one.</p><p><em>The last night</em>. Valora smelled her coffee and sank into her own calm stillness, remembering it. That danger couldn't touch her, now.</p><p>She and the twins had lived with another family of slaves in a cabin behind the main house. A shadow crept into it, spoke the language of her home in an accent she didn't know, begged her and the others to come, now, it was as safe as it could be. He picked the locks of their collars and led them past the guard posts, where the men slouched over as though deep in their cups. But they weren't drunk. She smelled it.</p><p>They traveled fast, resting little- Zevran, a dozen former slaves, Ceilidh Tabris, and Fenris- who Ceilidh called cousin. Even Valora had heard of him. He'd been a successful experiment until he was a lost fortune, and finally a nighttime terror.</p><p>“We have to catch a ship before the captain runs out of bribery money,” Ceilidh'd said.</p><p>They had a few near misses. Valora started to panic. She knew everything she'd endured up til now would be as nothing before what would happen to her if she was caught as a runaway. Fear of the world loomed larger than fear of the life she knew, even though her round eared daughter asked the garden plants to sing when she turned six. They obeyed.</p><p>Round eared daughters of slaves did not become magisters. And still, the terror of the unknown screamed over the dread of the familiar.</p><p>But Zevran saw her fear and understood it in a way Ceilidh couldn't. He passed her a flask of incredibly good alcohol, and talked about his own life of servitude. He spoke of how frightening freedom had been, at first. Of how long it took him to know he was, in fact, free. He spoke of his life in Antiva city. Of his own mage daughter. Of his house on the outskirts of town with a fine view of the bay, with its little garden where they mostly neglected the herbs and the tomatoes had gone feral.</p><p>And he spoke of the kitchen, with its slanting sun and smooth, golden beams. Its jars of spices and strings of garlic, which she would be welcome to.</p><p>She'd startled.</p><p>“Oh yes. Did I not say? You may stay, if you like. You need not make a decision of any kind, if you do not wish to.”</p><p>“You're not taking me back to Denerim?” She had peered at him out of the corner of her eye, wary. She felt her ears flatten, and couldn't help it.</p><p>“Not at first. You may go if you wish, yes? Whenever that should happen. Or not, if it does not.”</p><p>“Is... Soris expecting me?”</p><p>Zevran shook his head sadly. “No. Life everywhere has moved on, I am afraid. After so much time, though a bracelet you once owned sits on his household shrine and he prays for you often, he has found another. I am sorry.”</p><p>After a tiny pang- she really had loved him- unexpected relief washed over her. Valora remembered the alienage not as a home but as a place of relentless brutality. It could hold people she loved, but it kept none of them safe. Also, would anyone welcome her, with her two human blooded children and her tanned skin from the Tevinter sun that never reached her pale neck?</p><p>Somehow Zevran saw that too. “It is all right. Come home with us.”</p><p>And so she did.</p><p>Where did one put such gratitude, when one fierce almost-cousin would always come for you, and her surprisingly gentle husband knew how much life hurt, and knew what comfort to offer? Valora could not hold so much inside, so she pulled the biscuits out of the oven, instead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fun fact: I played Ceilidh before I had any exposure to DA2. When I finally met DA2's characters I had to laugh because Ceilidh pretty much looks exactly like Fenris with brunette hair. I ran with it. There's probably not a good way to check, but they regard each other as relatives.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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